


The War Was In Color

by hishn_greywalker



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Future Fic, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-06
Updated: 2006-11-06
Packaged: 2018-10-20 20:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10670160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hishn_greywalker/pseuds/hishn_greywalker
Summary: Pretending isn't all it's cracked up to be.





	The War Was In Color

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Picket Man](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/284748) by guede-mazaka. 



> Written in response to the story [Picket Man](http://guede-mazaka.livejournal.com/507025.html) by [](http://guede-mazaka.livejournal.com/profile)[guede_mazaka](http://guede-mazaka.livejournal.com/) and her comments to my review. I told her "this is what I see, in my mind, if they ever split up" and wrote this in the comment box. Can be found [here](http://guede-mazaka.livejournal.com/507025.html?thread=8552081#t8552081) in all its typo'd glory.

Sam tells himself he's happy and that he's grateful that he's safe. He's grateful that The Demon is gone and he can love again, that he has a beautiful wife and two beautiful little kids. He's grateful for the house and the white picket fence and the dog and the sun and the mail box at the end of the drive.

He's grateful he's not still in and out of motel rooms, a different one every night, and that he's still not stuck basically living out of his brother's car, so cramped he can't ever really stretch out his legs. He's not picking up mail from two PO boxes whenever they swing through - his dads and theirs. The only person who really knows him isn't his brother, and he's not afraid his friends are going to find out what it is he does.

But he can't look at Dean with out remembering and he still checks for weapons he doesn't have anymore, even after four years. He still reaches for a gun when he hears things behind him and every time he opens the trunk he half expects it to be full of holy water, rock salt, guns and crosses.

Sometimes when he reads the paper he still circles articles to show Dean, but realizes he won't be doing that, since they won't be seeing each other. Every now and then he comes across a website that makes him pause or hears an urban legend that makes him want to grab a gun and some rock salt, his brother and a map and head off for an adventure.

But he can't and he won't and every time he thinks like that something inside of him dies.

 

Dean's grateful he's not on the road all the time anymore and that he's got a beautiful wife and a house to stay in. He's grateful his mattress is comfortable and not patchy and smelly like so many of the ones from the motels he's stayed at. He's glad he's not a warrior anymore, not muddy and cold and never stopping.

He's glad he has a permanent address and he can have friends, something he's never had outside of Sammy. He's glad he has a niece and a nephew and a sister-in-law, even if they don't really know him. He's glad that when he turns around there's not a ghost attacking someone and that he doesn't have to look at report after report about weird things to make sure that nothings coming for his baby brother.

He's glad he can ignore the phone when it's Ellen or Ash or Jo and that his trunk is finally empty enough to hold stuff, since there aren't guns or rock salt or holy water or crosses shoved back there anymore. He's glad that he doesn't have to stay armed, and that when he goes out to drink the bartender knows him and the people in the bar great him like they've known him forever. He's grateful that the people in town know who he is, and there aren't anymore suspicious glances.

But every now and then he sees something that makes him want to yell for Sammy to get his ass out there, they've gotta go, and every now and then he goes to grab a gun that's not there and sometimes he feels really small when he realizes Sam's not there to get his back, so maybe he should shut the fuck up.

He sometimes hears about something that he and Sam would have run off to look into and he wants to open the trunk and see the guns and the salt and the holy water one more time, because then he and Sam would still be DeanandSam, not two people who lived two and a half hours apart and only ever really see each other once or twice a year at a graveyard in Kansas, though sometimes they miss each other there and then he can't stop himself from feeling grateful, because it's hard to see Sam and not want to sling his arm around him and walk off into the sunset with him, off to hunt the wicked and bring peace and all that. Hard not to want to just pick up where they left off, side by side, back to back.

 

Sometimes, both Sam and Dean look at the sunset and wondered where the other is and can't help that they haven't felt completely safe since they split up, and that their not quiet as comfortable in their wives presence as they were in each others so many years ago, when they were together.  



End file.
